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In episode 81 of The AI Fix, Graham discovers that deepfakes are already marking your kids' homework, while Mark glimpses the future when he discovers AI agents that can communicate by reading each other's minds.

Also in this episode, a Chinese robot called Miro U proves six arms are better than two; Mark discovers a well known prompting technique doesn't work unless you want to make your AI dumber; Network Rail delays 32 trains because of an AI photo of a wonky bridge; and our hosts ponder the explosion of progress on the ARC-AGI-2 reasoning benchmark.

Episode links:

• Network Rail fooled by AI-generated image of bridge damage.
• ARC Prize benchmark.
• Midea's six-armed Miro U robot unveiled.
• Midea Miro U robot video.
• Expert personas don't improve factual accuracy study.
• Valley Leadership Academy remote teaching in Lancashire.
• Deepfake teachers in UK schools trial.
• Xiao An robot teacher in China classrooms.
• Robot Wendy helps student return to classroom.

The AI Fix

The AI Fix podcast is presented by Graham Cluley and Mark Stockley.

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As Microsoft transitions more customers off Enterprise Agreements and onto MCAs, orgs need to be aware of some potentially costly changes they may incur. Directions' lead negotiator Dean Bedwell shares with Mary Jo Foley the biggest gotchas.



Download audio: https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/season4ep20bedwell.mp3

Syncfusion^® Essential Studio 2025 Volume 4 brings a set of meaningful enhancements to our Document Processing Libraries, focused on improving accuracy, visual fidelity, and standards compliance across PDF, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint workflows.

This release introduces improvements such as enhanced chart-to-image conversion in Excel, advanced chart preservation in Word and PowerPoint, expanded fallback font support, and OCR upgrades powered by Tesseract 5, along with several other updates.

One of the key highlights of this release is the JavaScript PDF Library (Preview), which brings powerful PDF processing capabilities to modern web applications. We’ve also introduced the Document SDK Extension for Visual Studio, making it easier to create projects with preconfigured document processing components.

Curious? Let’s dive in and see what’s inside!

JavaScript PDF Library (Preview): Create, edit, secure, and sign PDFs

Introducing a feature-rich, high-performance PDF library for JavaScript. This non-UI library enables seamless integration of robust PDF functionalities into any JavaScript, TypeScript, Angular, React, Vue, ASP.NET Core, and ASP.NET MVC apps. It allows users to read, create, and manipulate PDF documents without relying on Adobe Acrobat.

Key features:

• Create, load, and manipulate PDF documents programmatically
• Add and manage text, images, shapes, layers, and templates
• Work with interactive elements such as bookmarks, annotations, and form fields
• Import, export, flatten, and remove annotations and form data
• Merge, split, extract, and navigate PDF content
• Secure documents with encryption, redaction, and digital signatures

Note: For more details, refer to the JavaScript PDF Library documentation.

.NET PDF Library: Advanced Standards & enhanced OCR

Syncfusion .NET PDF Library is a comprehensive solution for creating, editing, and managing PDF documents across platforms. In the 2025 Volume 4 release, we’ve added powerful new capabilities to make your workflows more efficient and standards-compliant.

PDF/X-1a:2001-compliant document creation

You can now create PDF/X-1a:2001-compliant documents for cross-platform apps. This ensures your PDFs meet industry standards for print workflows, delivering consistent, high-quality output every time.

OCR Enhancements

The OCR Library makes it simple to extract text from scanned PDFs and images, converting them into searchable, selectable documents with just a few lines of C# code.

Upgrade to Tesseract 5

The OCR processor now supports the latest Tesseract 5 engine, offering superior recognition accuracy and faster processing. This upgrade ensures improved handling of complex layouts, multilingual content, and documents with challenging text structures.

Integrated image preprocessing

An advanced image preprocessor is built into the OCR workflow to prepare images for optimal recognition. This reduces errors and improves clarity before text extraction. The preprocessor includes:

• Grayscale conversion: Removes color data to simplify text detection.
• Deskew: Corrects tilted or rotated text for proper alignment.
• Denoise: Eliminates speckles and artifacts that interfere with recognition.
• Contrast adjustment: Enhances text visibility against backgrounds.
• Binarization: Converts images to sharp black and white using advanced thresholding for clearer text edges.

.NET Excel Library: Accurate chart-to-image conversion for perfect exports

The .NET Excel library now converts advanced Excel charts into high-quality images for accurate Excel-to-PDF and Excel-to-image exports. This ensures your charts look exactly as intended, preserving both visual fidelity and data clarity.

Supported chart types:

• Waterfall
• Treemap
• Box and Whisker
• Sunburst
• Pie of Pie

.NET Word Library: Next-level formatting and comparison features

The .NET Word Library delivers the following powerful updates to enhance document styling, accuracy, and visual fidelity.

CSS selectors in HTML-to-Word conversion

This feature supports the CSS style hierarchy. It includes element, ID, class, descendant, group, and compound selectors. These enhancements ensure complex HTML structures retain their original formatting and styling in Word documents. This minimizes visual discrepancies and preserves design fidelity.

Enhanced Word comparison accuracy

Document comparison accuracy has been improved by integrating the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) algorithm. This enhancement brings results closer to those of Microsoft Word. It delivers a more accurate and reliable document diffing experience.

Advanced chart preservation

DOCX-to-PDF and image conversions now support additional advanced chart types. These enhancements ensure precise formatting. They also maintain visual fidelity to the original Word document.

Supported chart types:

• Waterfall
• Sunburst
• TreeMap
• Box and Whisker
• Pie of Pie

Enhanced fallback font support

This feature now includes 38 additional scripts. These cover complex scripts, Latin scripts, and symbols. It ensures accurate rendering of characters and symbols during DOCX-to-PDF and image conversions. This works even when the specified font does not contain the required glyphs.

.NET PowerPoint Library: Smarter charts and superior font handling

The .NET PowerPoint Library update introduces enhancements for creating more professional and visually appealing presentations. Here’s what’s new:

Advanced chart preservation

PPTX-to-PDF and image conversions now support additional advanced chart types, ensuring precise formatting and visual fidelity to the original PowerPoint document.

Supported chart types:

• Waterfall
• Sunburst
• TreeMap
• Box and Whisker
• Pie of Pie

Enhanced fallback font support

This feature now includes 38 additional scripts. These cover complex scripts, Latin scripts, and symbols. It ensures accurate rendering of characters and symbols during PPTX-to-PDF and image conversions. This works even when the specified font does not contain the required glyphs.

Java Word Library: Smarter document comparison

The Java Word Library improves document comparison accuracy by integrating the Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) algorithm. This enhancement produces results closer to Microsoft Word and delivers a more accurate, reliable document diffing experience.

Visual Studio extension: Syncfusion Document SDK extension

Syncfusion has introduced the Document SDK Extension. It enables developers to build Blazor apps using powerful document processing components for PDF, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. These apps work without relying on Microsoft Office or Adobe tools.

The extension includes ready-to-use project templates and a Blazor Document SDK code generator. Developers can quickly configure projects and insert component code directly into Razor files. This makes it an ideal solution for new users to get started with predefined document processing components.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! Syncfusion Essential Studio 2025 Volume 4 sets a new benchmark in Document Processing Libraries. This update includes chart-to-image conversion in Excel, improved chart handling in Word and PowerPoint, OCR enhancements powered by Tesseract 5, and the introduction of our JavaScript PDF Library (Preview), making document processing faster, smarter, and more reliable across platforms.

Ready to explore more? Check out the full details on our Release Notes and What’s New pages.

Already a Syncfusion user? Download the latest version from the license and downloads page.
New to Syncfusion? Start your 30-day free trial and experience the full power of our components.

Need help? We’re here for you—reach out anytime via our support forum, support portal, or feedback portal.